That day, Andrea's office demanded that she take a two hour lunch. Well, OK... if you insist. We took a drive over to our local spot. We hadn't been there since the den emergence earlier in the year and it would be interesting to see if all of the Valley-dwellers had dispersed.
Our first sight was a Painter up on a log, deep into the first vernal. We'd never seen a Painted Turtle there before, just a Spotted once... many years ago.
The vernal, which never completely dried out last year, is huge again this year. The Painter could have conceivably been there all Winter.
On the way up to Robels' den, we saw this small, black-nosed American Toad hopping along.
There were no snakes up basking on Robles' mound. A large rock-flip was very fruitful, however.
That's a small Spotted Salamander and our First-of-Year Ringneck Snake.
Here's a closer look at the Spotty. It has a stub tail and if you look just below the tail-tip, you can see a resting Yellow Jacket nestled into the dirt. I'd thought it was a broken tail tip at first.
Here's our feisty, musking Ringer.
Andrea also discovered that the Stinging Nettle is out and very potent.
Heading down towards Sly's den, we rolled over a log and found this magnificent Blue-spotted Salamander.
For a Bluie, this thing is massive... about 5". Other than the mostly Jeff's specimen Matt (the son we never wanted) flipped 5 years ago, this is the biggest we've seen.
Andrea added our last species with the flip of a beautiful Redback.
We did go up there to walk a bit as well, but there were too many humans and time was running short. Still, this was the best lunch break ever.
Our plans of going out for a third walk that evening was thwarted by work stuff. We didn't get out again until Saturday morning. Coming soon.
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